'big hair, bai jiu, and environmental justice' or 'kafka by the (wuhan) shore'

i am in wuhan and bored to tears. the grey sky is ceaselessly spitting rain in sympathy. to be entirely honest, i probably set myself up to be disappointed on this trip. i had low expectations for this training program (for judges on adjudicating environmental cases) before i left. (and they have been fulfilled and subsequently lowered since being here.) i don't really heart second tier chinese cities. or at least not this one. and the weather is always, always terrible when i am in wuhan - grey, polluted, thick air, either unbearably hot or unseasonably cold, often raining - although the locals insist that it is otherwise sunny and gorgeous. (i think they are delusional or lying.) and our local partners here love to party. at times, this has been incredibly amusing. mostly, it means avoiding doing shots of bai jiu with red-faced, slurring judges who are quick to tell me how beautiful i am and how biaozhun (standard) my chinese pronunciation is while i politely fill my shot glass with water.

last night was one of the 'mostly' nights. i did shots of tang while the judges went to town on the grain alcohol and became incoherent. there was one boisterous judge from wuxi who was leading the group over the edge from tipsy to obliterated. as he and his comrades slipped one by one over that proverbial edge, i marveled at his white faux alligator shoes. and his amazing bouffant. although i suspect that is not the right word for it. i had an illuminating moment of realizing that i ought to start posting photos to this blog simply because i knew then that i would be entirely unable to find words adequate to describe this hairdo. the photos will be my april resolution (why not?). for now, suffice it to say that this judge has a massive tuft of hair carefully tamed upwards from his forehead adding an approximately four inches to his rather small (but very well-maintained!) frame. my moment of wishing to photograph his hair came while feigning interest in his lecture about the importance of exercise and about what amazing shape he was in and about how he is the best badminton player perhaps ever in the history of history. (he can play badminton for four hours straight without stopping (not even for one second!).) there was a young chinese-american man there representing a beijing-based US environmental NGO and this judge took it upon himself to also draw the entire table's attention to this fellow's body. he explained that he was in reasonably good shape, saying that even he, wonder of nature that he is, was not willing to take his jacket off so that his shoulders and pecs could be compared to the young man's. (he was quick to point out, however, that he was probably still stronger. the chinese-american smartly agreed with the judge.) but, the judge then moved down, pointing out to the table that our young friend had started going soft around the middle - too much beer in beijing, not enough discipline. he then implored the young man, repeatedly, for the sake of sino-US relations, to start going to spinning classes. he said in a month, his tummy would be gone. (and the state of sino-US relations would be improved?!? that part i didn't quite follow. that and why this judge was into spinning. but maybe that's because i was drinking tang instead of bai jiu.)

this morning i witnessed a mid-numbing moni fating (mock court roleplay) performed by graduate students posing as judges and peasant-plaintiffs in an environmental pollution case. it was as cliched and mediocre and insulting as you can imagine. i drank excessive cups of terrible instant 2+1 nescafe coffee just to entertain myself. (and, to be honest, i love overcaffeinating. although i don't think there is much caffeine in this fake coffee. mostly just toxins and sugar.) the collected observers then boldly launched into an improptu discussion of 'environmental public interest litigation' - a widly popular, but little understood, idea in china. at some point one of the judges asked me to explain the li an - or case acceptance - process in american courts. i had to explain that we don't have such a process. i clarified that a plaintiff files a case and the court accepts it and then during what we call motion practice the defendant challenges the case and it is at that stage that cases are often dismissed for a variety of reasons. there is no initial assessment conducted by the court or the judges to determine whether or not to let the case in the door in the first place. (the li an process is largely political in china.) i walked right up to the edge of using the phrase 'independent judiciary' but wisely and quickly backed away from that cliff, rather unlike my bai jiu drinking colleagues last night. whether it was the hangovers or the complete lack of structure to or purpose for this program, we ran out of things to say to one another shortly thereafter and are now on an extended lunch hour.

i suppose i sound sarcastic in this post. perhaps i am. usually i feel honoured to do rule of law work in china. sometimes, when the skies above and the drunken judges below are spitting in your face and the discussions of skills in adjudicating environmental cases include such basic niceties as 'give the parties water when they come to your office', it feels absurd. in such moments, i like to imagine what end of a kafka novel i am about to wake up in and where the story will go from here. at least i can look out of my grimy hotel room window at the grimy shore of the south lake below take solace in the ceaseless grey.

what's free speech got to do with it?

i have had many interesting conversations about google's withdrawal from china. especially among my colleagues, who have varying views on the matter. i have been meaning to collect them here, and make an articulate, nuanced and compelling point about freedom of expression in tidy letters well-arranged. i even had "我♥谷歌" (i heart google") as my gchat status message for a time, which says a lot given that, as previously noted in this space gchat status messages are my current creative outlet. my genre, as it were. which may or may not implicate me in the whole google affair in some abstract artistic sense. however, i do not need share my conversations with you or make tidy points here, because i have just read an op-ed piece in the china daily which says it all. ahem:

Google's exit a deliberate plot
By Ding Yifan (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-03-25 07:48

Editor's note: Google’s moves are combined with Washington’s tongue. The US company finally exits when it’s able to achieve neither business survival nor political aims.

Search engine leader has been part of the US' foreign strategy; its departure opens the door for domestic and foreign rivals

After two months of intense spats with the Chinese government, Google said on Monday it would shut down the mainland-based Google.cn search services and redirect the mainland's web users to Hong Kong.

In January, the world's leading search engine threatened to leave after alleged cyber-attacks in the mainland. Google said it would no longer filter its Chinese-language search results, a commitment that it agreed to when the company launched its search operations in China in January 2006.

Google's withdrawal is not a purely commercial act. The incident has from the beginning been implicated in Washington's political games with China.

A few days before Google made its announcement, United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton lavishly praised US Internet companies for their role in helping the Obama administration realize its foreign policies, at a lunch with chief executives of Google, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

Clinton in particular sang of their positive role in instilling US political stances and values into Georgian and Iranian street politics to sway local public opinion.

Given that Facebook, Twitter and YouTube have no access to the Chinese Internet market, the White House believes that Google alone cannot play a large role in China as it did in Georgia and Iran.

As expectated, days after the enlightening lunch, Google announced its withdrawal of its search service from the world's largest Internet market on charges that it could not tolerate strict Internet censorship required by the Chinese government. Immediately after its announcement, Clinton made a speech in support of Google's "Internet freedom" campaign.

Google has enjoyed intimate links with the Obama administration. The company was one of the four major sponsors of US President Barack Obama during his presidential campaign. It also played an important role in helping Obama's team raise election funds.

After the Obama administration was sworn in, some senior Google managerial staff members were successively recruited to important government posts. Such close connections between the two make it natural for Google to be devoted to serve the Obama administration's foreign strategy.

The search engine leader's exit from the Chinese mainland is a deliberate plot. The charge that it is opposed to China's "hacker attacks" and "Internet censorship" not only sounds reasonable, but also caters to the prejudices cultivated in the Western public toward the Chinese government. Google's case is in essence part of the US' Internet intrusive strategy worldwide under the excuse that it advocates a free Internet.

Google's accusations against China are completely groundless. The company has so far failed to submit any convincing evidence of the Chinese government-aided hacker attacks on its search engine. The censorship charges also exposed the engine's ignorance of similar practices prevailing across the world.

Google's services in Germany, France, India and other countries are also under scrutiny. Even in the US, it is not rare for some government agencies to often intrude into private e-mails under the anti-terror pretext.

Many of the US Federal and State laws and acts have clauses to restrict the flow of information on the Internet. In California, Colorado, Nevada, Louisiana and other states, public libraries, schools and Internet service providers (ISP) are required to put measures in place to block juvenile access to pornographic content. As the world's largest filtering software producer, the US has made the world's majority part of information-blocking software.

Google's Monday announcement was also a grudging commercial move amid its gloomy performances in China's market. Compared with Baidu.com, China's largest search engine, Google has lagged behind. It suffered a series of setbacks in the fastest-growing market, especially last year.

Google.cn was accused by China's Internet watchdog in January and April of last year of reserving porn contents and linking to other unhealthy websites.

Consequently, the Chinese agency made a decision in June to temporarily halt Google's outbound search services and its key words search business and urged the engine to rectify the matter.

In September, Kai-Fu Lee, who spearheaded Google's push into the mainland's market, resigned as head of Google China. Lee's departure was followed by successive resignations of other Google employees and the standoff of some of its local business.

By exiting from China, Google is by no means a political victim as it claims. Its departure is completely a failed result of competitions with other rivals in the fierce Chinese Internet market.

Google's departure is not expected to cause large losses in China's Internet search business. On the contrary, the unwise move will leave more room for China's homegrown search engines, such as Baidu, to improve and to benefit from its search technologies.

For a long time, some other foreign Internet companies, including those in the US, have been covetous of the world's fastest-growing market. Google's exit as a powerful competitor will leave them more commercial opportunities. Upon its announcement, Microsoft, which has been vying with Google for the market share in search software, issued a statement saying foreign companies should only abide by local laws and rules to keep their business thriving.

The author is a researcher at the Development Research Center under the State Council.

********************************************

reading this article reminded me of a 1994 quote from yu yu lin of the taiwan-based china times about reporting on mainland china: “If we don’t publish the lies and the rumors, there will be no news.”

when were were kids in beijing, my sisters and i used to call the china daily "the happy paper" because it was always bursting with good news. without fail and without so much as a glance at the front cover, we could accurately predict what articles we would find there on any given day. this actually became a bit of a game for us. there were three main genres: (1) china improving its relations with another country; (2) a peasant in some part of china improving the country; (3) a peasant really loving chairman mao or the party or otherwise demonstrating passionate nationalism. so on a typical morning, we could learn: (1) china improves relations with malta!; (2) farmer in guangzhou achieves record harvest!; (3) mao enthusiast saves silk scarf with the chairman’s portrait for 45 years!. not much has changed. although now the news is not always happy, even if it makes me smile sometimes. i recall an article from last august entitled "australian moves sour relations". the opening sentence was as follows: China canceled plans for Vice-Foreign Minister He Yafei to visit Australia earlier this month, reportedly due to Canberra granting a visa to Rebiya Kadeer, the mastermind of the July 5 Urumqi riot. awesome. the author later uses "masterminded" as a verb, saying "kadeer mastermineded and directed the violence". i really appreciated that use of the word of the word mastermind. almost as much as i appreciate the use of the word "expectated" in the above piece. in fact, that whole paragraph is sheer poetry and intellectual power:

As expectated, days after the enlightening lunch, Google announced its withdrawal of its search service from the world's largest Internet market on charges that it could not tolerate strict Internet censorship required by the Chinese government. Immediately after its announcement, Clinton made a speech in support of Google's "Internet freedom" campaign.

perhaps i'll further pontificate on google at some point. or perhaps i simply need to focus on having more enlightening lunches and see what comes next. or maybe it's more about masterminding my expectating free speech.

bittersweet symphony

there is nothing profound about this title. it is simply the song that is playing at the moment. (then again, all of my titles are songs of some sort, even if i am only singing them in some small corner of my heart.) life slowed down for me last friday as the back-to-back programming came to an end (our judicial training on domestic violence was immediately followed by an environmental legal advocacy program). the next morning, i awoke to find beijing caked in grimy orange. there was a flamboyant dust storm that day. it commenced somewhere after midnight and i just learned today that the ppm measure for beijing air quality at around 4:00 am saturday morning was 700. healthy is 50. really seriously bad and you shouldn't go outside is 500. i cringe to think about what the levels were on saturday as i walked to ballet class.

i hadn't seen a dust storm like this in beijing since i was a kid. it's hard to open your eyes and it gets in your teeth and it's generally rather horrid. it reminded me of my excuse for smoking in high school - cigarettes tasted better than the air. that was quite possibly true. well, that or i was simply being rebellious. also possibly true. of course, now i spend my time complaining about all the smokers in beijing and trying to avoid restaurants or bars with too many of them. it's hard enough breathing in this town without having to inhale second-hand smoke as well. and yet, i stay. even with the miserable ambient air quality this weekend, i had a few moments of joy and wonder at being here. and there's the bittersweet symphony.

i had a lovely dim sum brunch with girlfriends on sunday and then a wander through the city. we stumbled cross to older men with birds they had trained to fly and catch little orbs they would shoot into the air. there was something at once humble and striking about the scene. something in the way they cradled the birds in their hands and threw them as they released them. we stopped to watch for awhile. a woman holding a dog in a red t-shirt watched with us. i loved that moment.

it always comes down to moments. i still have moments punctured by sadness. or perhaps more precisely, wanting to share. share everything - the men with their birds, the dog with his alert ears and red t-shirt, the excitement of this new program aiming to empower grassroots environmental NGOs to engage in legal advocacy, the clever line i worked into my closing remarks at our judicial training, the latest gorgeous pic of my nephew, my most recent mediocre poem. but savouring the moments myself has to be enough for now. maybe for always.

i am hopeful that the bitter air will become sweet this week. all the wind did seem to clear things out for a few hours on sunday morning. like the weather, my feelings about the potential for rule of law in china have been unruly of late. stretches of dark, dusty storms of dismay punctured by swells of hope and clarity. (although the real state of things was probably best articulated at a rule of law roundtable i attended two weeks ago: the CCP is politicizing, rather than professionalizing, the courts.) this morning, i came across a quote i had noted for myself some time ago, unfortunately failing to note the source:

I believe that, despite the enormous odds which exist, unflinching, unswerving, fierce intellectual determination, as citizens, to define the real truth of our lives and our societies, is a crucial obligation. It is, in fact, mandatory.


it reminded me again that i will always be doing this, in some sense. even when the dust gets in my eyes and the sky is obscured.

dueling thoughts on dust to conclude:

Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.
Pablo Picasso

Avoid the world, it's just a lot of dust and drag and means nothing in the end.
Jack Kerouac

you have to love before you can be relentless

that statement was on a list a friend sent me of jonathan frazen's 10 rules for writing. it was number 10. although i am not clear on whether that makes it the most important or the least. i am going to assume most. i have been thinking about its implications over the last few days. which somehow feels appropriate as i am in the midst of a week-long judicial training and training of trainers (TOT) for chinese judges on how to handle domestic violence cases. before i am misunderstood, let me explain that it feels appropriate because of the passion that people bring to the anti-violence movement, not because i think the statement can be contorted to somehow be equated with violence. working with this small cadre of chinese women and men committed to eradicating violence, or at least decreasing it, or increasing the protections for survivors is inspiring. they are relentless. and, i suppose, so am i.

it has been an intense few days. we held the TOT prior to the training this time (our programs are usually structured in the reverse). and the TOT group is working with our foreign expert trainers to facilitate during the actual training. they lead a series of 'practical courtroom exercises' - model court role plays - on their own this afternoon and it was fantastic to see them apply the facilitation skills they had learned. it also made us all realize that we have our work cut out for us. and china is at such an interesting point in developing the capacity of the courts to protect the rights of domestic violence survivors (or victims as they are still called here). the role play exercises were designed to assess the level of awareness about domestic violence the judges participating in the training have going in, and their role plays and discussions revealed many profound misunderstandings. then again, how much can any of us ever really understand this problem? tomorrow we will spend a day focused on the dynamics of domestic violence. tonight at dinner we had a lengthy discussion about how, in the US, the 'cycle of violence' model (escalation / tension build - violent episode - honeymoon phase) has been largely discredited and replaced with the power and control wheel (more complicated and nuanced). it's an important conversation, but it all feels antiseptic sometimes to try to squeeze this impossible, complex, dark thing to fit some sort of a circle. a shape of any sort.

i have also realized that i have a hard time turning off when i am immersed in a work program. i took a break on saturday night and went to the irish ball (for st patrick's day). overall, it was a grand time. i got glammed up & danced the night away, something i haven't done for ages. and i managed to sleep in until 2:00 pm on sunday, something i don't think i've ever done before. (when i finally got up, i was so proud of myself for sleeping for 10 hours! and i felt great.) but when i first arrived & we were sitting down to dinner (i was at a table with a group of friends), i found myself laughing with incredulity. or maybe it was exhaustion. but i found it astonishing to even be there, with my outrageous shoes and glamazon dress and big hair, after the three overwhelming days at the TOT. a friend was trying to mix up the men and women at the table and possibly set me up with someone (we were both canadian, that was the alleged connection), so i was seated next to a man i hadn't met before. as i was laughing at life and the places and spaces one can occupy between dawn and dusk, i apologized in advance. i said i was utterly exhausted and couldn't promise i'd be much of a conversationalist that evening. and then i ended up launching into talking about (what else?) domestic violence. and the role of the judiciary in combating it. and our training. not sure he was very impressed, but he made a good partner in the line dancing at least.

so what does all of this have to do with love and being relentless? not really sure. (did i mention yet that i am tired? (but content.)) or maybe i'm all too sure. maybe i liked frazen's number 10 because i can relate to it in ways too numerous to articulate here and now. reminds me also of the line at the end of tennyson's poem 'ulysses' - to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

i have loved. and i am relentless.

meanwhile the world goes on

so i've moved. the new place is wonderful - a gorgeous renovated hutong just north of jingshan park. the space is embracing. i adore my roommate. i love being in the very heart of the city. the move went smoothly - i packed my things like meticulous thangka paintings, the movers were efficient and careful (even if was bigger than all three of them and my efforts to make friends with the driver failed), and i have designed ecological and lovely furniture for my new room. it snowed on my first night in my new home, which also happened to be yuanxiao jie - the lantern festival making the first full moon of the chinese new year - so there were fireworks exploding all around me as the snow softly collected on my discarded cardboard boxes in the courtyard. my roommate left on a work trip just before i arrived, so i was unpacking on my own. which was nice for reflection (no move is complete without it) and for emotional moments considering beginnings, endings, the falling snow. a friend brought some dinner, including the traditional tang yuan one is meant to eat on the eve of the lantern festival so the night was complete. the fact that it snowed on my first night is very auspicious and somehow seemed to be the heavens confirming this choice. i drifted off to sleep content, confident that the year of the tiger will bring roaring wonder, and watching the snowdrifts collect on the courtyard bamboo garden outside my floor-to-ceiling bedroom window.

that was sunday night. this is an accounting of last night (monday night):

number of ill-disciplined, untrained, obnoxious puppies i had to handle: 1
number of times she peed on me: 2
number of poos i had to clean up: 1
number of chinese drama queen girlfriends who came over to cry about boy troubles: 1
number of bottles of wine we had: 1
number of times my cat peed on my bed b/c he couldn't get to his litter b/c of said puppy: 1 (well, either that or he was acting out, but he seemed pretty upset about it)
number of layers of bedding it went through: 4
number of phone calls from depressed and still in love / all talk no action ex-boyfriends: 1
number of hours of sleep i got: 5 (actually an improvement from the previous night when the fireworks kept me up)
number of times i was woken up during the night by one or both creatures crying: 5 - 7

i am now bleary-eyed at the office and unable to focus even though i must. (truth is, i am exhausted. last night's escapades, while unique in the animal antics are not in terms of my sleeplessness.) i am ruminating on love and choices, commitment and feeling, freedom and priorities. connection.* and have visions of new bedding and closet storage units dancing in my head. (work will consume me for much of the rest of this month so i am attempting to get as much as possible about the new place sorted before then. and somehow focusing on the tangible seems to ease the emotional.) and the consistent arc in my inner conversations over the last week has focused on how to love and let go. and meanwhile the world goes on. a line from a mary oliver poem that is always good for perspective. ahem:

Wild Geese
by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

meanwhile the world goes on. i had lunch with my flatmate, my new landlady and a friend of hers (both chinese women in their early 50s) on saturday. my new roommate is another expat. we took them to a rather swish western restaurant (they didn't even have chinese menus!), which was a treat for us and fun for them (they braved the cheese plate like pros). our landlady is quite a character - smart, outspoken, joyful. she and her friend asked me about my work. i explained that i work on rule of law issues and gave some examples of the issues we focus on. they then engaged me in a conversation about the legal system in china, colouring their points with case studies - anecdotes about the experiences of friends and friends of friends in the courts. one of the cases was even a domestic violence case. they plainly stated that there is no rule of law in china and that power and money control all the court decisions. by the end of the conversation, i wanted to bag my head against the trendy exposed brick wall next to me. or at least return to our exchange about why western people like to wear so little clothing at the beach. it was much more fun to hear them wonder about why americans wear bikinis even if they are fat. or to see their faces as i extolled the great joy of sunbathing and swimming topless in europe. this conversation about the courts, like all those of its ilk tend to do, left me questioning if this work is simply futile. my chinese mother is always telling me i should stop wasting my time and either go make money or become a diplomat. beats banging your head against a brick wall (even if an aesthetically pleasing one).

it didn't help that i returned home to discover this great quote from tom friedman: "One-party autocracy certainly has its drawbacks. But when it is led by a reasonably enlightened group of people, as China is today, it can also have great advantages." i almost lost my lunch. then again, tom friedman makes my stomach turn even on a good day when he's only saying something completely obvious and not egregiously offensive. oh well.

futile or not, here i am. fist-bumping against the iron hand of the reasonably enlightened authoritarians that run this place. still a little heartbroken whenever i allow myself to be still. and getting peed on. meanwhile the world goes on.


*only connect!